What a journey! As the IPI/MIDAS NewsSpectrum programme wraps up its inaugural year, we’re excited to share profiles of the 45 fellowship projects – and some impressive final numbers.
Out of 107 applications received across three rounds, the NewsSpectrum jury chose 45 minority-language journalism fellows: 28 for the Collaborative Reporting Fellowship (CRF), which supports joint reporting projects between minority- and majority-language media; and 17 for the Professional Placement Fellowship (PPF), which supports custom short-term work placements or study visits for minority-language media professionals at majority-language media.
Fellows represented quite a diverse group. NewsSpectrum projects involved journalists and media with a background in 25 languages: Arabic, Basque, Belarusian, Catalan, Creole (Cape Verdean/Guinea-Bissau), Czech, Danish, English, Estonian, Galician, German, Hungarian, Italian, Kurdish, Latvian, Lithuanian, Polish, Portuguese, Romani, Romanian, Russian, Slovene, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish. Fellowship partners – including fellows and host news organizations – hailed from 16 EU countries.
Minority-language journalism fellows carried out projects with leading media across the EU and UK, including Deutsche Welle, Dagens Nyheter, L’Espresso, Berlingske, Bayerischer Rundfunk, Dankse Radio, LRT Lithuanian public television, The Times, The Bureau of Investigative Journalism, Público (Portugal), and taz.
Public-interest journalism
You can check out profiles of the NewsSpectrum fellowship projects here. It’s a standout group, with projects covering investigative journalism, podcasts, data journalism, fact-checking, documentary films, photojournalism, and human-interest stories. Fellows‘ public-interest reporting covered topics such as racial profiling, the neglect of cross-border regions, right-wing extremism, cross-border education, and anti-Gypsyism. Meanwhile, PPF partnerships included fellowships focused on digital transition, investigative journalism skills, audience engagement, and sports reporting.
These are just some of the pioneering projects supported by NewsSpectrum:
- The first journalism in Portugal published in Portuguese Creole (Cape Verdean and Guinea-Bissau creole).
- A series of business and reporting fellowships between Telex and Transindex that helped facilitate the launch of Transtelex as a new independent news outlet for Transylvania after Transindex journalists quit their newspaper to protest political interference by local politicians.
- A new Russian-language fact-checking initiative in Estonia
- Investigation of East-West care migration in Europe
- Profile of the only hostel in Poland for political refugees from Belarus
- The Anglo-Arab Voice, a series of podcasts delving into the world of what it means to be a British-Arab living in the United Kingdom.
- The stories of Syrian refugees in Spain, told by a Spanish-Arabic news outlet many of whose journalists themselves left Syria
- Untold stories about trauma related to gender and sexuality among Syrian refugees
- Profiles of the “Proud Roma” movements across Europe
- How many Roma live in the Czech Republic? Investigation into why many Roma fear participating in census data and why Roma NGOS and associations are encouraging Roma to declare their ethnicity as part of a visibility initiative
NewsSpectrum Digital News Accelerator
Earlier this year, we launched the NewsSpectrum Digital News Accelerator, a series of online webinars focused on the digital transition.
For those who couldn’t attend the original sessions, we’ve posted all of the webinars on the NewsSpectrum website as a public resource. The resource page also includes nine other videos on digital transition topics, as well as other resources, such as links to recommended reads and trainer presentations.
- Tackling online harassment and smear campaigns (March 8)
- Digital skills for the reader revenue era in publishing (March 17 and 18)
- Audience research and product development for small newsrooms – Part 1 (March 22)
- New media business models and diversifying revenue streams (March 29 and 30)
- Audience research and product development for small newsrooms – Part 2 (April 26)
A final note: Congratulations to all NewsSpectrum fellows; and thank you to all of our many partners who made the year first of NewsSpectrum an outstanding success!